ISSUE 4 Aug / Sep / Oct 2018
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I n s i d e T H E O R G A N I C H E M P R E VO L U T I O N COLOMBIA’S UNDERGROUND INDUSTRY | CANNABIS FARMERS SWITCH TO HEMP
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The Rodale Institute grows hemp alongside rows of corn on their experimental organic farm in Kentucky. Read more on page 20.
editor’s note
Scaling up the hemp industry means building an environmentally sustainable foundation first.
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And so, this issue discusses the hemp industry’s potential while never losing sight of our larger ecosystem. In “The Organic Hemp Revolution’s Many Battles,” industry leader Annie Rouse details how a handful of farmers across America are building up the organic hemp movement in the face of immense regulatory barriers. In “Composting Hemp Bioplastics & the Future of the Circular Economy,” expert James Eichner breaks down why we cannot espouse the benefits of expanding our hemp plastic industry without also talking about improving our composting systems. And as Rick Trojan’s first-person account of traveling through Colombia’s underground hemp industry winds its way up into the mountains, we see a model of how hemp can be integrated into society as a whole, fresh, medicinal crop. We also have a healthy salad recipe with hemp incorporated three ways, a guide to making hemp salve, an analysis of the hemp food market, and much more. Ultimately, we remember that while it might be tempting to sprint toward a future — any future — where hemp is legal, we must take the time now reflect on our ideals and work together to create a sustainable foundation as we build this industry up to scale.
Julia Clark-Riddell, Managing Editor
PHOTO ROB CARDILLO
IT’S TEMPTING to get carried away when thinking about the future of hemp. Today, more farmers are planting more acres of hemp in more states than last year, the political forecast for the plant hasn’t looked this promising since World War II, and the public is consuming hemp products with increasing excitement and frequency. When the HEMP staff was first brainstorming how to capture the plant’s momentum in this issue, we envisioned a magazine dedicated to this hemp-filled future — an issue that would focus on how the current hemp industry can overcome the hurdles in its path and move towards operating at full scale. But we quickly realized that many of the questions about scaling up the hemp industry return, as we all do, to the earth. We cannot talk about the future of large-scale hemp farming and widespread hemp product manufacturing without considering the ways these economies will impact our increasingly threatened planet. “With the crush of industrialization and greed comes the loss of life,” writes Winona LaDuke, a Native American activist and water protector in her 2005 book “Recovering the Sacred.” Today, LaDuke farms hemp on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota and educates others on hemp’s ability to help shift our society towards a post-petroleum economy if the crop is farmed and produced using regenerative practices. “I want to see the whole plant utilized and I want to see hemp as a part of an integrated farming economy,” LaDuke says. Here at HEMP, we agree.
ISSUE FOUR
In the mountains controlled by FARC revolutionaries, many Colombians grow cannabis and hemp. Read more on page 62.
features
THE ORGANIC HEMP REVOLUTION’S MANY BATTLES 20
As hemp farmers push to go fully organic, scalability issues and regulatory recognition continue to complicate their efforts. By Annie Rouse
IN OREGON, A MARIJUANA EXODUS CREATES A HEMP RENAISSANCE 44 Many of Oregon’s cannabis farmers are switching to hemp. They have plenty of reasons why. By Mitchell Colbert ROAD TRIP NOTEBOOK: INSIDE COLOMBIA’S UNDERGROUND HEMP INDUSTRY 62
The Hemp Road Trip explores Colombia’s illicit hemp industry as the country moves toward legalization, traveling through bustling cities and up dangerous mountain roads to experience a vision of hemp where food is medicine.
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PHOTO RICK TROJAN
By Rick Trojan
ISSUE FOUR
In the heart of Colorado’s San Luis Valley, Mile High CBD’s organic farm gets prepped for the 2018 growing season.
contents
EDITOR’S NOTE 04 politics
environment
industry
STATE OF HEMP: 8 HISTORIC HEMP DAYS IN WASHINGTON, D.C. 13
BRINGING BACK BIOCHAR 30
COMPETING IN A NEW GAME 38
COMPOSTING HEMP BIOPLASTICS 34
PAPER PROPHECIES 57
hemp health
HEMP FOR FOOD: A RISING COMMODITY CROP 60
WATER WARS WON! 27
After more than a year of fighting the federal government, a Montana hemp farmer finally wins the right to irrigate her crop with federal water. FORECAST 84
How to call your representatives on Capitol Hill and let them know why you want to see industrial hemp legalized in the United States.
In order for hemp bioplastics to be a truly sustainable alternative, they must be compostable — and we must have places to compost them.
HOW TO MAKE CBD SALVE 75
A naturalist’s guide for turning your hemp buds into healing balm. PRODUCT REVIEWS:
Summer Hemp Picnic! 77
RECIPE: TRIPLE HEMP SUMMER SALAD 81
Add raw hemp hearts, toasted hemp hearts, and hemp oil to a seasonal salad for extra nutrition.
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Professional athletes are increasingly turning to CBD for relief — and endorsing CBD products too. The hemp paper industry can serve as an indicator of the hemp industry as a whole; we’ll know the hemp industry has made it if hemp paper is thriving.
While CBD is gathering the hemp industry’s largest market (and acreage) share in the U.S., hemp foods are quietly experiencing rapid growth, with Canada leading the way. HEMP HINDSIGHT 88
Insight from our history’s heroes. PHOTO MILE HIGH CBD
Lobbyist Ben Droz was in the room when Sen. Mitch McConnell successfully added his hemp legalization bill to the 2018 Farm Bill. He recounts the inside details of the victory and what lessons we can carry forward.
The biochar market is exploding. What does this mean for hemp producers?
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Hemp grows on East Fork Cultivar’s organic farm, though lacks organic certification — along with the rest of the country’s hemp farms — from the stubborn USDA. More from their farm on pg. 44.
Publisher
Eugenio Garcia Art Director
Todd Heath Managing Editor
Julia Clark-Riddell Associate Editor
Joel Hathaway Copy Editor
Katie Way Contributing Editor
Ben Droz Account Executive
Shelby Nelson Advertising
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facebook.com/hempmagazine instagram.com/hempmag twitter.com/hempmag CONTRIBUTORS
Dan Armstrong Mark Bender Matt Brown Rob Cardillo Seth Crawford Colleen Codekas Mitchell Colbert James Eichner Daniel Garcia A.J. Herrington
Robin A. W. Kelley Kim Nguyen Kit O’Connell Matt Reily Annie Rouse Sophie Shillue Rick Trojan Laurie Wolf Bruce Wolf Henry Worobec
On the Cover
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PHOTO MILE HIGH CBD
Greenehemp Co.’s founder, Ryan Rowlett, holds fan leaves of a Cherry x Otto II strain and a Otto II Franklin strain in Greeneville, Tennessee. Photo by Mark Bender
state of hemp
Federal hemp legalization has found an unlikely ally in Sen. Mitch McConnell.
8 H I STO R I C H E MP DAYS I N WAS H I NGTO N, D.C. A federal hemp lobbyist recounts the week on Capitol Hill that culminated in Sen. Mitch McConnell successfully adding his hemp legalization bill to the 2018 Farm Bill, and discusses what we can learn from the victory. By Ben Droz
OVER THE COURSE of eight days in June 2018, as the weather turned muggy in Washington, D.C. and hemp farmers around the country tended to their young crop, hemp lobbyists and activists witnessed an unprecedented week of progress on Capitol Hill. From June 6 to June 13, the hemp legalization cause pushed forward with more momentum than ever before, reaching a climax as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell succeeded in inserting his Hemp Farming Act into the Senate Farm Bill — the passage of which would fully legalize hemp on the federal level for the first time since World War II. As a hemp lobbyist, I was working on Capitol Hill throughout the week and witnessed much of the excitement. As I reflect on that mid-June week now, recounting exactly what happened, I believe those eight days contain important lessons that we can learn to strengthen hemp activism in the future.
It’s Vote Hemp’s Lobby Day, and dozens of farmers and business owners from across the country have flown in to lead over 40 meetings with senators, congressmembers, and senior staff. Much of the lobbying is behind McConnell’s Hemp Farming Act of 2018, otherwise known as S.2667. Armed with a freshly passed Hemp History Week resolution, a list of 28 potential Senate cosponsors, and a hot tip from a senator that hemp funding was slated to be in the Farm Bill, we had very productive meetings that day.
It’s midway through the ninth annual Hemp History Week — an event when activists around the country push for hemp legalization — and there’s a new energy buzzing around hemp. Yesterday, Senators Ron Wyden, McConnell, Rand Paul, and Jeff Merkley filed a resolution to officially designate the week as “Hemp History Week.” The resolution won a unanimous vote, as it did in 2017. Unlike last year, however, this unanimous vote was just the beginning. On June 6, Wyden brought two hemp baskets full of hemp products to the Senate floor for his now-annual tradition. He
As we had been informed, the Senate Agriculture Committee released the base language of the widely anticipated 2018 Farm Bill on the morning of June 8. This massive five-year bill is over 1,000 pages long and includes programs for everything from sugar subsidies to food stamps. During the House proceedings leading up to the 2014 Farm Bill, hemp received its first vote ever and passed with strong bipartisan support. The final version signed into law included the now-famous SEC 7606, which opened the door to all the domestic hemp production that we see today. When the 2018 Senate Farm Bill was released on Friday, June 8,
PHOTO BEN DROZ
Day 1: Wednesday, June 6 — Hemp History Week Activism Picks Up Steam
spoke about the benefits of hemp for 11 minutes live on CSPAN for all the world to see. Hemp activists also hosted a happy hour on Capitol Hill, inviting hemp leaders and staffers to have a hemp beer and prepare for the week ahead. Day 2: Thursday, June 7 — Lobbying Efforts Intensify
Day 3: Friday, June 8th — Senate Farm Bill Includes Hemp
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“ As we all know, hemp is very diversified. It could end up in your car dashboard, it could end up in your food, it could end up in certain kind s of pharmaceu tical s. It’s t i m e t o figure it out and see where the market will take us.” -Senate Majorit y Leader Mitch McConnell
it included the word “hemp” 48 times in three different sections. With leadership from McConnell, the full language of the Hemp Farming Act of 2018 was included. Senators sent press releases with hemp in the headlines and major publications across the country framed hemp as a major reform in the Farm Bill. Day 4: Saturday, June 9 — Hemp History Weekend Continues the Momentum
With Hemp History Week events happening nationwide, there was no better time or way to share the fantastic news of the 2018 Farm Bill. There were events at hemp farms, breweries with hemp beer, concerts, and more. This was the largest Hemp History Week to date, with more hemp history to celebrate than ever, while making hemp history. Day 5: Sunday, June 10th — Meanwhile, in Germany…
Far away from Washington, D.C., a delegation from the Hemp Industries Association landed in Europe for a two-week tour that included participation in the 15th annual European Industrial Hemp Association Conference. The EIHA conference brought together over 340 hemp experts from 41 countries to discuss building a legal, global hemp industry, as well as to build support for the “Cologne Declaration on Industrial Hemp,” which calls for “reasonable and harmonized legislation on hemp extracts,” among other things. Day 6: Monday, June 11 — A Day of Rest and Preparation
Back stateside, hemp activists started the week slow. The Hemp History Week campaign was over, and all lobbyists could do was prepare for the Senate Farm Bill’s upcoming meeting, scheduled for Wednesday morning before the Agriculture Committee. Day 7: Tuesday, June 12 –– The Opposition Strikes Back
It’s a universally acknowledged political truth that nothing is as easy as it seems. In the late afternoon, the day before the Farm Bill was scheduled to be reviewed in committee, lobbyists got news of a new amendment introduced that was attacking CBD. The amendment was filed by a longtime enemy to hemp and cannabis, Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is co-chairman of the Senate
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Drug Caucus and chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee. Grassley’s amendment sought to define any form of CBD as a type of ‘marihuana.’ The hemp industry took swift action. At 8:34 pm, the first action alert was sent out and people immediately started contacting their representatives and sharing the news. By 10:56 pm, another action alert was sent out by another organization, as social media posts multiplied. Letters from constituents poured into Senate and House email inboxes. With the urgency of a potential vote in less than 12 hours, the adrenaline was flowing across Capitol Hill. Day 8: Wednesday, June 13 – Final Senate Farm Bill Showdown
The day dawned a humid 70 degrees and time was of the essence. At 6:00 am, another action alert was sent out to hemp supporters. At 9:30 am, the bill was scheduled to be marked up by the committee and there was a possibility that the Grassley amendment could come to a vote. Not only did the entire industry pour in support, but equally as important, our allies on the Hill did the same. Before commencing the meeting, McConnell took the Senate floor to spend more than two-thirds of his time talking about the inclusion of hemp in the Farm Bill and educating fellow senators on the current state of hemp. Had this happened any other time, it would be breaking news. But during our historic week, this was just the kickoff to an historic day. By 10:00 am, the meeting had begun in the Agriculture Committee room. The room was packed, with the most powerful senators in Congress around a table, journalists in the corner working on laptops, and staffers shuffling around to hand out printed statements and amendments. One of the statements bore the letterhead from the majority leader’s office, with a headline, “McConnell Touts Hemp Farming Act in Senate Farm Bill.” The event was livestreamed for public consumption. McConnell started by talking about the benefits of hemp, like a true hempster. “As we all know, hemp is very diversified,” he said. “It could end up in your car dashboard, it could end up in your food, it could end up in certain kinds of pharmaceuticals. It’s time to figure it out and see where the market will take us.”
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